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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
November 7, 2007
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| October 30, 2007 |
Wajeeh Azayzeh and The Reality of Life for Palestinian Refugees Living in Jordan |
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Wajeeh Azayzeh tells participants of his family’s plight as they were forced to flee Palestine and start over with nothing in Jordan |
Wajeeh Azayzeh is a second generation Palestinian refugee who lives in Jordan, where he is the Director General of the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA). He joined Peace Boat from Cochin, India to Aqaba, Jordan, to share with participants the reality of life for the generations of 1.8 million Palestinian refugees living in Jordan. He began his lecture with a story about a family of four who fled from Palestine on foot with a few possessions. They ended up in Jordan where the father, who was a farmer, had to work as a laborer for ten yen (US10 cents) per day. They lived off bread and tea and slept in a tent under trees for shelter. Seeking better economic opportunities, the father went to the Arabian Peninsula to work, seeing his family only once a year. Their only wish was to return to their farm in Palestine. Although unable to return, the family survived and the children ended up going on to university. In fact, Mr Azayzeh tells us, this was his family which is representative of the typical experience of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. These refugees, concedes Mr Azayzeh are, in one sense, lucky because he believes that in other neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Syria, Palestinian refugees are treated badly with few rights and little freedom. |
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Mr Azayzeh participated in a discussion with Professor Takahashi Kazuo about the current state of the Israel-Palestine conflict |
Mr Azayzeh explained that, in Jordan, Palestinian refugees are granted Jordanian citizenship, access to free education and experience an existence free from discrimination. However, they all depend on a dwindling pool of foreign aid. ‘A lot of countries could do a lot more than they are doing now. Sixty years ago the developed nations spent a lot of money on this, but it is running out. The 4.5 million Palestinian refugees in the world live on the meager money received from the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).’ In addition to the drying up of foreign aid, Mr Azayzeh believes that the mainstream western media is exacerbating the problem through its bias towards Israel. For example, massacres carried out by Israeli forces are not often shown on CNN and other prominent media channels. However, if there has been a suicide bombing by a Palestinian, it gets a lot of coverage. ‘I think this is very unfair. So many more massacres have been carried out [by Israeli forces] that you haven’t been told about,’ he asserted. |
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| Peace Boat staff member Sato Adel translated Mr Azayzeh’s lectures from Arabic into Japanese |
On the issue of Palestinian suicide attacks, he asked the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the Palestinians and said that if you can imagine what it’s like to have your house taken and be exiled from your homeland, then you can better understand their position and the deeply ingrained sense of injustice they feel which causes them to act so drastically. According to Mr Azayzeh, ‘There are several thousand Palestinians who are willing to give their life for their country,’ he said. |
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| A team effort: the onboard helpers and staff members who were involved in preparing Mr Azayzeh’s lectures |
Finding a viable solution to the ongoing crises appears hopeless. From Mr Azayzeh’s perspective, the clincher lies in the Palestinians being given the right to return to their homeland. ‘I would like to address this to the international community – as long as the Palestinians do not have the right to return, this problem cannot be solved,’ he said. In fact, ‘the right to return is more important than the living standards – your life would not get worse,’ he added. He believes one key step in the peace process is for the United Nations to activate resolutions that have been passed but not enforced. These state that Israel must give Palestinians the right to return and must also give back land taken in subsequent conflicts such as in the war of 1967. He also pointed out the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in that there were many resolutions against Iraq that were ignored, and so the United States retaliated while failing to take action against Israel to hold it accountable for its failure to meet resolutions. His own view matches that of the Palestinians: ‘Everything starts with conversation. This is very much something Palestinians believe. I think if all of the resolutions were acted on then the majority of Palestinians would be satisfied.’
Mr Azayzeh’s last words to those participants joining programmes that would spend time in Palestinian refugee camps when Peace Boat stopped in Jordan were: ‘You are a representative of Japan. You can teach Japanese culture, and you can bring back the experiences you had and you can tell your friends what you experienced. I don’t think you would see them or me as a terrorist. Please take a good image of Palestinians back to Japan.’ |
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